Ban on plastic bags proposed for Milpitas retail, grocery stores

by Ian Bauer, Milpitas Post

Posted:
10/23/2013 06:32:31 PM PDT

Updated:
10/23/2013 06:32:31 PM PDT

City of Milpitas hosted two community meetings this week to raise public awareness about a proposed ordinance to ban single-use plastic bags at all retail stores citywide. Food establishments such as restaurants and take-out eateries would be exempt from the ban.

On Monday night, city staffers told about 10 residents who attended an informational meeting inside Milpitas City Hall's first-floor committee room that the bag ban would help protect the environment, conserve energy resources and promote public health.

"The idea is to get plastic bags completely out of the consumer waste stream," said Leslie Stobbe, the city's public information specialist.

The meeting saw facts and figures on the cost of plastic bags manufactured from petroleum-based chemicals to consumers and the overall environment.

"Plastic bags cost a lot of money; they blow in the wind, they litter the land, they end up in creeks, in the bay and the Pacific Ocean," Stobbe said. "They also break down a lot through erosion and sun and they cause plastic starvation to livestock and kill ocean life."

She said it takes 12 million barrels of oil to produce 100 billion plastic bags in the United States alone.

"That's about $500 million spent on one ingredient annually," Stobbe said, adding about 4 percent of the world's oil production is used to make plastic bags in this country. "It's up to 1 trillion plastic bags used each year worldwide. About a million are used each minute when you break down that.

Advertisement

"

Stobbe said City of Milpitas' proposed plastic bag ban is being driven in large part by state and federal mandates, notably from the U.S. Environ-mental Protection Agency.

Under what's known as the MS4 program, jurisdictions like Milpitas must find ways to avert polluted storm water runoff transported through what are known as Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems from which water may be discharged untreated into local water bodies. For Milpitas, that could include averting pollution into waterways like Coyote Creek one already exposed to high levels of toxic pollutants.

"(MS4) set some pretty stringent goals for us to meet," Stobbe said. "By July of 2014 we have to have a 40 percent trash load reduction."

The trash load reduction would be increased to 70 percent by July 2017, and 100 percent by July 2022.

"It's unknown how we're going to achieve that," Stobbe said of the 100-percent benchmark. "That's no trash in the water ways. There will be fines from the regional water quality control board and the State of California."

She noted full-capture devices ones that screen out and remove litter in local creeks and other waterways would likely be employed to a greater degree throughout the city. Stobbe said additional costs to utilize these and other methods would likely be passed on to ratepayers.

"The whole program is really thinking outside of the box," Stobbe said, noting some assistance from mandating agencies would be given to the city to help meet those goals. "We're picking and choosing on what we can do and what other cities are doing."

Jeff Moneda, the city's public works director/city engineer, told meeting attendees that street sweeping would greatly help divert waste from local waterways. He added street sweeping would have another benefit.

"From my standpoint as an engineer, it minimizes the potential for floods," Moneda said, noting much of Milpitas sits in a flood plain.

At the Monday meeting, people who attended voiced conflicted feelings about the bag ban though most agreed plastic bags were detrimental to the environment.

Some like 28-year Milpitas resident Robert Finnie felt paying for paper bags at supermarkets ran contrary to a commonly free service provided to patrons of those stores.

"It's more or less the personal cost," Finnie, 64, said.

But Finnie, who brings reusable bags to the grocery store, said he did understand the issue of plastic bags especially as a local fisherman who has fished in places suffering from litter such as the Los Vaqueros Reservoir in the East Bay as well as the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.

"There needs to be education about litter," Finnie said. "I hate it when people litter."

According to Stobbe, under a plastic bag ban, the city would allow paper bags comprised of 40 percent post-consumer recyclable material to be available for purchase only at local grocers.

"If you wanted a bag at the checkout it would cost you 10 cents," Stobbe said, adding in a year that amount would increase to 25 cents per paper bag. "Restaurants are exempt from the ban for now."

She added the ordinance would also not ban plastic produce, meat or pharmacy bags.

According to Stobbe, city staff intends to introduce the plastic bag ban ordinance to Milpitas City Council on Nov. 19. If the ordinance is approved, the item will return for a second reading on Dec. 3, when it would officially take effect.

Saying public outreach about the ordinance would occur from December through March, Stobbe noted a "grace period" to use plastic bags at retail stores in Milpitas would end on Earth Day, April 22, 2014.

"So ongoing we would have enforcement and increased awareness," Stobbe said.

The enforcement, she added, would include a three-year track of records on how businesses have successfully switched from plastic bags to paper. Additionally, Milpitas' bag ban would cover large and small businesses as well as farmers' markets.

To achieve a single use plastic bag ban ordinance, City of Milpitas participated in an environmental impact report involving related efforts in San Mateo County. That county's final environmental impact report was adopted in October 2012.

Stobbe related that Milpitas was the first along with five other cities to study impacts of plastic bag and polystyrene food ware bans in the Bay Area.

"There were found to be, of course, no negative impacts to banning plastic bags," Stobbe said, adding the eight-month study was completed last year. "It saved us an incredible amount of money from doing our own environmental impact report."

On Wednesday morning, the city hosted a second meeting for business owners affected by the proposed plastic bag ban.